So Long, Lonesome
by katamarann
Summary: When an affair runs its course, what direction do you turn?


"Do you ever think we should just stop this?"

The question hangs in the air, suspended by the guilt that surrounds them, dancing on their mixed breaths as they lie beside each other in the darkness. A siren wails far in the distance, and twenty or so stories below their hotel room, the city goes about its business as usual, unaware of the gravity of the nine words whispered above. The neon temples and cathedrals of the electrified oasis in the desert never sleep any more than they themselves do at night.

He is silent, waiting for an answer to a question that had been on her mind as well. She knows that he's been thinking the same for quite a while now, by the tightness around his eyes whenever they say goodbye, the bow of his back as he slings his bag over his shoulder as they part in the airport every time. Maybe the pain isn't worth the fleeting hours they steal away together in countless cities since they began this, whatever _this_ is.

Anna slides out from between sheets that have probably seen more than their fair share of illicit trysts. She doesn't bother to dress or even pull her robe around her; she simply pads over to the wall of windows that overlook the city and stands silently. The rattling air conditioner chills her skin when the compressor kicks in, making her gooseflesh all the more painful.

John's eyes turn from the reflected lights on the ceiling to study her nude silhouette, pale and smooth and surreal. Her hair fans about her shoulders in chaotic lengths, almost ghostly in the blue-white light of the nearly full moon. He has half a thought that anyone in the other wing of the hotel could see her if they looked hard enough across the courtyard, but he's too stunned by her beauty to care. He has a front row seat, after all.

Before he can draw a breath to make a self-effacing joke, to recall the question and name it silly, she whispers a reply.

"I don't know," she says in a tiny voice. "Maybe." Her arms fold across her breasts and he can almost see the shiver that goes up her spine.

John swings his legs out and stands up carefully, bracing himself both physically and mentally for the storm he has unleashed. He walks the half dozen steps to where she is and reaches out tentatively. She does not recoil when his fingers graze her hip. She sighs, barely enough to register, and leans back slightly toward him. His other hand mirrors the first as it curves around her other hip.

Anna blinks back tears that she refuses to let fall. His hands on her skin are warm and not unwanted at all, but feel at the same time familiar yet vaguely foreign to her. Less than an hour ago, those same hands brought her to the pinnacle and beyond, but now, she's wondering if it was for the last time. The question was asked, her response given. Neither of them can take it back.

At the slight sway backward of her body, he steps closer to her, the soft hair of his chest brushing her back, the swell of his middle-aged belly fitting perfectly against her. She craves every hard edge and soft curve of him, and against her better judgement, she reaches down to take one of his hands and pull it up and around between the valley of her breasts. They stand together silently, knowing that this affair of convenience and sweet release has reached its turning point.

"Two years," she says quietly with an unamused puff of laughter. She wets her lips and stares out at the neon lights of the Strip, which at three in the morning become the stars on Earth for all of their drowning of the sky. "Did you realize it's been that long?"

John dips his head beside hers and nudges her ear with the tip of his nose. "Two years," he recalls, "four or five dozen cities, and quite a few company paid miles." Of course he knows. He knows the time and date and room number and what she wore that night in this very city, what they had to drink, and every other detail that he relives day in and day out. He files them all away to keep him company when he returns from his trips to the harsh boredom and discontent of his life. He sighs and closes his eyes, squeezing them shut against the outside world. If they could just stay here forever…

But they can't. Tomorrow morning, he will be back on a plane to San Francisco to a likely empty house, and she to London. After that, who knows?

"I'm thirty-four years old," Anna continues. "And whenever anyone asks if I've finally met someone, I can't tell them, because there's too much at stake." She dips her head as he tightens his arm around her. His other hand traces letters into her skin, branding her. "You'd lose your job, I'd probably lose mine…"

"I was given my notice via text," he interrupts with a wry smile. He feels her stiffen against him in shock. "My father-in-law decided that I've outlived my time with the company and informed me in a most informal way. So our jobs aren't a factor any more."

Anna turns in his arms and meets his eyes for the first time since she'd let the word _love_ die on her lips a short time ago, to be unspoken again in the heat of passion. She'd told him once, long ago, and though he never said it in return, she wished she knew he felt the same. She had to be something other than a friendly body to lose himself in when they happened to be in the same hemisphere, right?

"What happened?" she asks, her throat constricting slightly. "When?"

His shoulders sag, but his eyes narrow in seriousness. "Right after my plane landed," he replied. "Probably around the same time that the lawyer delivered the papers to Vera."

Her name is enough to make her stomach clench, but her heart is racing too fast to dwell on John's estranged wife. "Papers?" she asks, though she knows, or at least she _hopes_ she knows.

John nodded as his fingers drew down her ribcage. "I filed for divorce," he said. "You know that we'd been living apart since before you and I began. The marriage has been over for a long time, it only needs to be made official."

She knew that, but the truth of it made her swallow hard. The bitter pill of being someone's mistress was hard to swallow, but he was a drug she was willing to take over and over. "That's why you asked if we should stop," she deduced. "You won't be traveling for the company any more."

"In a way, yes. I want to stop..._this_," John said gently, leaning in and inhaling her scent, a heady mix of perfume and lotion and their mixed exertions from the evening. It is his favorite scent. He swallows to slake his dry throat before continuing. "This...hiding and wasting away as I count down the days until my next trip. The next conference or seminar. The days between are torture. I can't do it anymore."

She inhales sharply as the tears she'd managed to tame finally run wild. John tuts and pulls her against him, though her arms are drawn up between them as a barrier. It barely registers that they are still naked, but there is nothing erotic about it. If anything, it lends to the rawness of the moment.

"Anna," he pleads, nudging her chin up gently with his finger. "I can't make love you one day and pretend you don't exist the next," he explains in a broken voice. "I'm tired of leaving you at airports and hotels not knowing when or even if we'll see each other again. Please tell me you want more than that." His thumbs trace the tracks of tears descending from her eyes. "Please."

Her face is impassive as she studies the wetness of his cheeks, the wrinkles around his eyes that tell the tale of a man tired of the life he'd chosen. His eyes dart back and forth as they soften and then harden, then soften again as her silence lingers on.

Finally, she lets out a long breath and inhales again, the air suddenly heavy. "Come home with me," she says in a tiny little voice, then says it again more firmly in reply to his frown. "Come home with me." It is a desperate plea and a gentle command.

"To London?"

"To London," she replies with a nod. "No more weekends. No more hotels. No more sneaking around like we're terrible people." She begins to babble. "I want everything. I want a home with you, I want to wake up beside you every morning." She trembles as his arms encircle her. "I want to eat dinner every night with you, and sit around paying bills, and…"

He chuckles and kisses her face over and over with his hands cupping her cheeks, finally meeting her lips. "I want all of that and more," he agrees to her heavy sob of relief. "Home, and family, and children, all of it." He kisses her forehead as she lets out a little laugh. "I love you," he confesses finally. "I have for such a long time."

Anna cries her own love into his shoulder, her cheeks aching from smiling. They stand together and rock back and forth, and their bodies finally registered that they were pressed together, skin to skin. Relieved and happy kisses become breathy and wanting, and he carefully steps backward toward the bed, pulling her with him and falling together in a heated tangle of limbs.

"Come home with me tomorrow?" Anna asks again, needing the affirmation as she rises above him.

"Home," he breathes, brushing her hair aside and smiling. "Let's go home. Together."


End file.
